Is the Web in the Way of Your iPhone 4 Pre-Order?

Since I left AT&T and my iPhone a few months ago, I’m not doing with the pre-order dance today, but it seems that many are. And it doesn’t appear to be a happy dance, based on the stream of negative tweets that are filling up my Twitter stream. Problems are ranging from gateway time-outs to messages that the pre-order couldn’t be processed. It’s yet another example of the difference in customer experience between AT&T and Apple. Here’s a small representation of what I’m seeing — the cleaner language tweets, if you will:

ravenme: “My life is exactly like the iPhone 4 pre-order process right now. Too many requests and I am overloaded and unable to respond.”

alexlindsay: “Instead of crashing out, Apple’s new store app should just say-AT&Ts lame servers simply can’t handle demand for the new iphone!”

dmoren: “Look, everybody be fair. It’s not like AT&T’s ever dealt with an iPhone launch bef—whoops.”

CaliLewis: “This iPhone 4 pre order process failure feels awfully familiar. Good thing we’re not all stuck in the store this time, though.”

It really amazes me that AT&T — and even Apple, for that matter — is unable to handle the load of pre-orders. This is the fourth iPhone model in as many years that AT&T has offered the device and it’s the fourth year in a row that servers are buckling under the data load — something that is a core business for the carrier. In fairness, Apple’s store is also kicking back messages saying that orders can’t currently be processed.

Like I said, I’m not pre-ordering, but I’m sure many of you are. How is the experience going for you?